Evaluation of Example 6: Nondisclosure of Residential Poltergeists

Passage:

The haunted House in Nyak, NY, at issue in Stambovsky v. Ackley. Source: Google map adaptation. “Home buyers have actually sued over undisclosed hauntings. For example, when Jeffrey Stambovsky bought a turreted turn-of-the century Victorian in Nyack, New York, in 1990, he wasn't familiar with local legends. Nor had the seller disclosed her experiences to him, which included a ghost that periodically shook her daughter's bed, another that hovered in midair, and one that dressed as a Navy lieutenant during the American Revolution and confronted her son ‘eyeball to eyeball outside the basement door.’ Once Stambovsky got wind of all this, he wanted out of the purchase. He got his way, but only after taking the seller and real estate agent to court, claiming fraudulent misrepresentation. Eventually, a New York appellate court made the astonishing ruling that the house was haunted as a matter of law, because the former owner had previously reported the ghosts to the media.”

Stambovsky v. Ackley, 169 A.D.2d 254 (N.Y. App. Div. 1991) source: Ilona Bray, Selling Your House: Nolo's Essential Guide 2nd ed. (Berkeley, CA: Nolo, 2017), 85.

Analysis:

The main difficulty in the evaluation of this passage for fallacies is finding the relevant argument. First, ask “what is the conclusion of the argument"? (assuming there is one). — The court concluded that the house was haunted as a matter of law. Second, ask “What is the evidence in support of this conclusion? —The former owner had publicly reported the presence of ghosts in the house prior to sale — but not to the buyer.

So, therefore, the court is not concluding ghosts actually exist in the house, only that the property value was diminished by its notoriety of being possessed by poltergeists, and this state of affairs was concealed to the buyer. The judgment of the court was in favor of Mr. Stambovsky's claim of nondisclosure of condition since the former owner Mrs. Ackley …

“… deliberately fostered the public belief that her home was possessed. Having undertaken to inform the public-at-large, to whom she has no legal relationship, about the supernatural occurrences on her property, she may be said to owe no less a duty to her contract vendee.” Stambovsky v. Ackley, 169 A.D.2d 254 (N.Y. App. Div. 1991).
No fallacy occurs unless it be argued the court was mistaken in supposing that presumed “supernatural circumstances” are legally related to material condition of the property and “within the bounds of the narrow expectation to the doctrine of caveat emptor.”